Unlocked! (10 Days Later....grumble...grumble...)...

What Blogger.com needs is a good handyman, perhaps someone like this guy. Because they sure don't know what they are doing, if my experience is any indication.

For those who didn't happen over to my other blog, Auto-Gratification, in the past few days or notice the little sidebar that I had up here on this blog, allow me to explain my extended absence from posting.

It started simply enough with my vacation to Cancun a couple weeks ago. When I returned from the trip, I submitted a post on Monday, September 11. However, almost immediately after submitting, I went to check something on the blog, and when I typed in the address, the following page came up instead of my blog (click to enlarge):



Somehow, someone managed to hijack my site address and redirect people to their site. I don't know why they would care enough about my site to do that, but such was the case. I did not know how to fix it, but finally by Tuesday night, I had figured out a solution, and the blog was back up (but not before I received several panicked e-mails from readers who thought I had taken the blog down. I can only imagine how many people just removed my blog from their lists without asking what had happened).

All was well for Wednesday and Thursday's posts, but then on Friday, as I attempted to post, I received the following message from Blogger (click to enlarge):



Apparently, my blog is so generic and non-specialized [uh, right], that it appeared to Blogger's spam robots to be a spam blog. Naturally, I immediately submitted the request for them to unlock the blog, trusting their promise that they would [direct quote:] "take a look at your blog and unlock it in less than a business day."

A week later, I had still heard nothing from Blogger.com, in spite of repeatedly filling out their request form and sending multiple e-mails asking for their assistance.

Finally, this past weekend, I was excited to see the following message in my e-mail inbox (click to enlarge):



Yay! My blog is unlocked! ....I say to myself. So, I do as they ask: I go to Blogger.com, sign out, sign back in, attempt to post, and (click to enlarge).....



.....I'm still locked out. I then proceeded to sign out again, shut down my computer entirely, restart, and yet it still refused to allow me to publish! After a few more e-mails, filled-out requests, and 3 more days (for a total of 10 days since they locked me out), today I finally am able to post again! Yay!



So, I'm back and ready to go. Tell your friends and neighbors....Once You Go Asian is riding again! (pun intended)

And here's more handymen that I'd like to see how "handy" they are in one particular room of the house....